The Health Care Debate: An Orthodox Contribution

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

Reform of our current health care system is very much in the news - and provoking a great deal of polemical reaction and heated debate. I struggle with understanding all of the inter-related issues that need to be considered in assessing the proposed overhaul - or, at least, reform - of the health care system as it exists. I have noticed that there is not a great deal of talk and needed concentration on preventative health care, including the very foods we consume in great quantity that potentially lead to poor health in the first place. Since the claim exists that a great deal of health care costs are consumed by preventable diseases, including many cardiovascular diseases, it seems that we should concentrate on "disease prevention" caused by our own careless habits in how we take care of our over-all health. "Eating healthy" can easily fit into an Orthodox understanding of asceticism and an Orthodox anthropology that considers the body to be the "temple" of the Holy Spirit, and thus something we need to care for. Also, our fasting discipline easily lends itself to "eating healthy" - abstaining from all of that red meat, heavily-sugared "desserts," etc., for sustained periods of time - which is just one more reason we should embrace fasting when called upon to by the Church. It is a practice that strengthens us both spiritually and physically. This is all quite independent of our political positions and our acceptance or rejection of the current administration's attempted reform of the current health care system.

I did come across a very interesting article with the following title: "Big Food vs. Big Insurance - The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care." This article is certainly more political and social than theological; but it raises some of the issues that I just mentioned from a different perspective and seemed to me to be a meaningful contribution to the entire debate. The author also raises the unsettling and uncomfortable issue of obesity within America, and the unpromising future about combating that health issue, especially in relation to a powerful food industry that is not driven by health considerations. If the title interests you, here is a link to the article.

Fr. Steven